The present invention relates generally to a method of displaying an Internet advertisement over a webpage.
Advertising on the Internet has become ubiquitous such that it is relatively uncommon today to encounter a webpage that does not contain some form of advertising. Indeed, Internet advertising is now so pervasive that it may be the primary means by which a website operator obtains revenue from the website. For example, the website operator may be paid a certain amount of money per user-click on the advertisement (so-called “click-through” advertising). Other models of Internet advertising revenue generation are known.
In the early days of Internet advertising, advertisements placed across the top, bottom or sides of a webpage, otherwise known as static banner ads, were common. As technology progressed, more dynamic advertisements were introduced. One such example is the pop-up ad, where a new Internet browser window containing the advertisement is spawned in response to the user clicking a link. The pop-up window is displayed on top of the webpage that the user desires to access. In order to clear the advertisement, so that the user may read the underlying content, the user typically must take action to close the pop-up window.
Unfortunately, over time, Internet users have become accustomed to certain types of advertisements (e.g. banner ads); consequently, users no longer pay much attention to the advertisements. In a more extreme example, users have become so irritated by certain types of obtrusive advertisements, e.g. the pop-up advertisement, that Internet browser developers have, presumably in response to consumer demand, developed ways of blocking those advertisements (e.g. pop-up blockers). Of course, advertisements are ineffective when users ignore them or are irritated by them.
There is therefore a need for a novel method of Internet advertising.